CITS has landed a new grant from the Carnegie Corporation and contracts from the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Department of Energy for research on preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
A two-year $400,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York will be used to conduct assessments of international efforts to control the spread of weapons of mass destruction. The center will examine how effectively governments regulate and monitor trade of technologies, material and information that can be used in making nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. The results of the research will be used by governments to strengthen their export control systems. The center will also study the role of industry in monitoring its exports of sensitive weapons-related technologies in an effort to help forge new international standards for industry compliance with export controls.
CITS also received a three-year, $2.5 million contract from the U.S. Department of Commerce to conduct similar research on international laws, regulations and enforcement mechanisms designed to prevent rogue states and terrorists from buying weapons of mass destruction components. The undertaking involves the evaluation of U.S. government efforts to assist foreign governments in developing effective export control systems. Researchers will also help the commerce department to identify deficiencies with export control regulations in countries where the department has yet to implement assistance programs.
The U.S. Department of Energy has also awarded the center a contract to assess security practices at nuclear facilities throughout Russia. The energy department has a major initiative to improve the security of tons of unsafeguarded nuclear weapons material scattered around Russia. The program has already resulted in security upgrades at 40 percent of Russia's nuclear facilities, but the energy department wants to ensure that the equipment and security upgrades provided can be sustained over the long term. The UGA center's role in this project will be to assess the working environment at nuclear facilities and identify any nuclear security deficiencies that might require additional attention by experts from the energy department and its national laboratories.